1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electric oven toaster and more particularly to a control mechanism for such an oven toaster for preventing undertoasted bread when a toast cycle is interrupted by opening the oven toaster door.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a prior U.S. Pat. No. 4,178,498 to Paul V. Snyder, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, there is disclosed an arrangement for controlling operation of an oven toaster. The oven toaster includes a toast switch 50 in series with a main switch 20, and upper and lower heating elements 52 and 54, respectively. Both the main switch 20 and the toast switch 50 have to be closed in order to energize the heating elements 52 and 54. The main switch 20 is automatically closed as the door 14 is closed, and a manually operable lever 56 is provided for opening and closing the toast switch 50. A heat-up/cool-down bi-metal toast cycle timer controller 60 is positioned at the lower front portion of the oven toaster and its solenoid 62 is positioned above the main portion of the timer 60 with its armature 70 extending forwardly.
The toast start switch 50 for energizing the heating elements 52 and 54 after the door 14 has been closed is positioned directly above the solenoid 62-70. Downward motion of knob 94 will cause the generally horizontal leg 90 of the lever 56 to be moved downwardly to close switch contacts 76 and 78. During this movement, the generally vertical leg 82 of the manually operable lever 56, and particularly, its lower tab 84 will be moved rearwardly to move actuator 61 of the toast cycle time controller 60 from its off position illustrated in FIG. 2 to its on position illustrated in FIG. 3. The manually operable lever 56 includes a latch arm 108 that engages the solenoid armature 70 for holding the lever 56 in a toast switch closed position during a toasting cycle.
When a user opens the door 14 to interrupt a toast operation actuating rod 38 is pulled forwardly to open the main switch 20 but the toast lever 56 remains latched to the solenoid armature 70. Consequently, when the door is reclosed, the main switch 20 is closed and the toast timer 60 completes the remaining part of the toast cycle. Naturally, this operation is acceptable if the same slice of bread remains in the toaster oven; however, if a fresh slice of bread is inserted while the door is opened, a short toast cycle and undertoasted bread will result unless the toast knob 94 is lifted and then moved down to re-set a full toast cycle.
Our invention is concerned with such oven toaster control mechanisms and, more particularly, to an improved simplified control mechanism wherein a unique interrupt lever mechanism is provided for requiring a user to start a new full toast cycle when the door is opened to thereby prevent undertoasted bread.